Pre-Proposal Conference Minutes.pdf

SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

Life Insurance Services for the U.S. Embassy Tirana Local Employees

Minutes from Pre-Proposal Conference

RFP 19AL6021R0001

March 3, 2021 @13.00 A.M. Local time

The pre-proposal conference for life insurance solicitation number 19AL6021R0001, was scheduled and took place via google meet on Wednesday, March 03, 2021 at 13:00. The conference began at 13.00 a.m. local time as planned.

Place: the U.S. Embassy, Tirana via google meet.

In attendance were representatives from the following companies:

SIGAL Life

Sicred Sh.A.

DHIG Bulgarian Branch

Albsig Jete

Sally Lewis, General Services Officer and Contracting Officer for the LI Solicitation, began the meeting with a welcome and introductions of representatives from U.S. Embassy side.

I. Introduction by Contracting Officer:

Sally: Thank you for the interest shown in the Request for Proposal for LE Staff Life Insurance.

My name is Sally Lewis and I am the Contracting Officer/General Service Officer at U.S.

Embassy Tirana.

Let me introduce the other attendees from the Embassy.

Elida Lako – Procurement Agent/ GSO office

Bic Leu – Financial Management / HR Officer

This meeting is useful:

To disclose any ambiguities, errors, or omissions in the RFP that may later be corrected in a written amendment.

To give clarification on the Scope of Work

I must make clear that statements made at the conference do NOT change the solicitation. All changes will be by written amendment to the solicitation.

Also, all questions and answers will be provided to all companies on the solicitation mailing list. If an answer changes something in the solicitation an amendment will be required.

Written questions submitted to date have been reviewed and replies are being drafted.

Once cleared will be available and circulated to everyone. The cleared document will be published on Beta.Sam.Gov.

The offer due date and time is specified in the Standard Form 33 Block 9 and no offers will be considered that do not meet the deadline.

Clause 52.217-9, Option to Extend the Term of the Contract, allows the exercise of options to be the choice of the Government, not the contractor.

The offerors must follow the guidelines in the appropriate section of the solicitation

I. Discussion of the Solicitation Package

The following issues of the solicitation will be highlighted:

The U.S. Embassy Tirana has a requirement for life insurance services for the U.S. Embassy

Local Employees. Participation in the life insurance is voluntary, and premium costs under the contract will be shared with the U.S. Embassy paying 100%.

The groups of employees who shall be provided this insurance are:

- The U.S. Embassy employees; and

- The staff of official residences (CMR and DCR), American Embassy Recreation

Association, that will be covered under a rider.

More details will be explained by COR in the Section C.

Contract type (Section B paragraphs B.6 and B.8)

This is a fixed-price with economic-price- adjustment-requirements type contract under which the Government will issue firm-fixed price task orders.

No adjustment will be allowed during the first twelve months.

1. Period of Performance (Section F paragraph F.2)

The performance period of this contract is one year with four one-year options to renew.

2. Prices (Section B paragraphs B.6 and B.7) and Payments (Section G paragraphs G.3 and

G.4)

The Insurance Premium should be provided per USD 1,000 of salary. Pricing tables contain the estimated bi-weekly payroll in thousands of U.S. dollars. We roughly estimated the number of employees who would like to be insured under this contract, and the estimated amount of their bi-weekly payroll is indicated in pricing tables. Please note, that there are 26 bi-weekly periods in the year.

The Offeror may submit the prices in Albanian Lek.

3. SAM Registration (Section L)

As prescribed in FAR 5.207 System for Award Management, by submission of an offer, the

Offeror acknowledges the requirement that a prospective awardee shall be registered in the SAM database prior to award, during performance, and through final payment of any contract,. If the

Offeror does not become registered in the SAM database in the time prescribed by the

Contracting Officer, the Contracting Officer will proceed to award to the next otherwise successful registered Offeror. Please give yourself plenty of time before your contract deadline as the registration in SAM is rather long process.

4. James Zadroga 9/11 Victims Health and Compensation Act of 2010 is located in Section

B and clause 52.229-12 Tax on Certain Foreign Procurements (FEB 2021).

- If exemption is available (Albania is not on that list of Tax Treaties) W-14 must be submitted with the offer.

- W-14 must be submitted with each voucher or invoice.

- If exemption is not available 2% will be withheld from each invoice.

Public Law 111-347

Imposes 2% tax on any foreign person for contract payments received from U.S. Government for goods and services

- Purpose is to fund The World Trade Health Program

- Applies to contracts entered into on or after 5 June 2020

- Work is performed wholly or partly overseas

- Applies to each payment

Foreign Person:

- Defined as persons and/or companies not US

Taxes imposed under 26 U.S. C. 5000C may not be:

- Included in the contract price nor Reimbursed to the contractor by the U.S.

Government

5. Representations and Certifications (Section K)

The Offeror should properly fill out Section K and submit it with other documents as required in

Section L of the Request for Proposal.

Sally: “If you have any questions regarding above, please go ahead or send them in writing”.

II. Elida explained Section L Submission of offers and Section M Evaluation Factors

Hello everyone, I will explain briefly Section L and Section M.

Summary of instructions to offerors is provided in the Section L. The list of documents and number of copies and information that should be included in the offer is provided in the Section

L.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=fe164be21e882bea674389131411464a&term_occur=1&term_src=Title:48:Chapter:1:Subchapter:H:Part:52:Subpart:52.2:52.204-7 https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=090aecc953bfb4b5b83c97037de27135&term_occur=3&term_src=Title:48:Chapter:1:Subchapter:H:Part:52:Subpart:52.2:52.204-7 https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=090aecc953bfb4b5b83c97037de27135&term_occur=3&term_src=Title:48:Chapter:1:Subchapter:H:Part:52:Subpart:52.2:52.204-7 https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=f90711f21c4e91b9452956c6ec1909ce&term_occur=1&term_src=Title:48:Chapter:1:Subchapter:H:Part:52:Subpart:52.2:52.204-7 https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=090aecc953bfb4b5b83c97037de27135&term_occur=5&term_src=Title:48:Chapter:1:Subchapter:H:Part:52:Subpart:52.2:52.204-7

In order for the offer/quote to be considered, the offeror must submit:

Volume 1 -- Standard Form 33: Complete Blocks 12 through 18, as appropriate and fill in all the blanks in Section K of this solicitation.

Volume 2 -- Price Proposal and fill in Section B.

Volume 3 -- Technical Proposal (including legal documents, financial statement, license, experience and past performance, insurances, understanding of the requirements etc.).

All information and documents must be in English as required by FAR 52.214-34 SUBMISSION

OF OFFERS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (APR 1991). The copies of legal documents may be submitted in the original language but must be accompanied by an English translation.

1) Delivery of Proposals (Section L)

The offeror shall submit the complete offer to the address indicated in Standard Form 33: U.S.

Embassy, Rruga Stavro Vinjau, No. 14, Tirana, Albania

Proposals must be submitted on or before March 29, 2021 at 16:30 local (Tirana) time. No proposals will be accepted after this time. Proposals should be submitted in a sealed envelope marked “19AL6021R0001 – LE Staff Life Insurance Service”.

Evaluation factors for award (Section M)

To be acceptable and eligible for evaluation, proposals must be prepared in accordance with

Section L - INSTRUCTIONS, CONDITIONS AND NOTICES TO OFFERORS, and must meet all the requirements set forth in the other sections of this solicitation. Acceptable proposals will be evaluated pursuant to this section, and award shall be made as set forth in M.3.

The award selection will go to the lowest priced, technically acceptable, responsible offeror.

Proposals will be evaluated in two phases: a technical evaluation to determine the acceptability of the offer to the solicitation technical requirements; and a price evaluation to determine the total evaluated price proposed by each offeror. The award may be made based upon initial offers, without discussions.

For the purpose of evaluation, and for no other purpose, evaluation of prices submitted will be made on the basis that the Government will order the estimated quantities shown in Section B –

SERVICES AND PRICES, of this solicitation. The price evaluation will not include the price of any riders.

Detailed information on the evaluation factors and evaluation process is provided in Section M

At the end I would like to reiterate on the below 2 points:

James Zadroga Act. As Sally clearly explained the content, I would just emphasize that

Albania it is not in the exemption list and the W-14 must be submitted with the offer.

2% will be withheld from each invoice.

SAM registration. The successful offeror shall be registered in the SAM (System for Award

Management) database https://www.sam.gov prior to contract award as it is mandatory for the Contract Amounts over 30,000 USD for every company that intends to do business with the US Government. Sam registration is free and we advise you to start registration as soon as possible as the registration takes 2-3 weeks.

Sally asked if there were any question with regards to the Administrative part of the Solicitation

Package, and then passes over to Bic for Discussion of SOW

III. Discussion of the Scope of Work by COR:

Bic: Good morning everyone, as the Contracting Officer’s Representative I’m here to clarify Section C’s Specification of Work Statement.

C.2.1. Group Life Insurance Coverage The amount of group life insurance coverage is as follows:

C.2.1.1 Amount of Employee Life Insurance

The employee's estate or employee will receive an amount equal to two times the amount of the annual basic salary in the event the employee dies of a natural death.

The U.S. Government does not cover funeral benefits.

C.2.1.2 Amount of Accidental or Work-Related Death/Disability The employee's estate or employee will receive an amount equal to two times the amount of the annual basic salary in the event the employee is killed in an accident, or a work-related death/disability. The U.S. Government does not cover funeral benefits.

C.2.1.3 RESERVED

Partial and total disability coverage is not a covered expense. Note: This means that non-work-related disability is not a covered expense.

C.2.2 Life Insurance Benefits Conditions and Limitations

Conditions and limitations on the entitlement to life insurance benefits under this contract are as follows:

No benefits shall be payable if an employee's death or other insurance event was caused directly or indirectly by war. War shall be defined as declared or non-declared war or any martial operations or invasion, hostile acts of foreign powers, rebellion, riot, civil war, uprising, mutiny, operations by military or usurpatory authorities, martial law or state of siege or any other similar event or reason for declaring martial law or war. A terrorist attack shall not be considered war.

No benefit shall be payable under this contract if the employee's bodily injuries have been caused directly or indirectly and totally or partially by:

1.Violating the law or in resisting detention or arrest, https://www.sam.gov/

2.Participation in competitions involving the use of wheeled vehicles, horses, boats or waterskis, 3.An accident resulting from the employee being under the influence of alcohol, drugs or other toxic substance unless administered by a physician. Death as a result of a disease or physical or mental infirmities and medical or surgical treatment thereof (except pyogenic infection due to an accidental cut or wound) shall be considered a natural and not an accidental death. Suicide will not be covered.

COR passes to Sally to provide closing remarks.

At that moment the representative from DHIG asked to repeat the Zadroga Act and when the

2 % will deducted since entered a little bit late in the pre-proposal conference.

Elida explained again that 2% will be withheld from each invoice.

Sally asked again if there was any question. Since no other question was raised, Sally informed that additional questions in English should be sent by e-mail to TiranaHealthIS@state.gov. Answers will be provided in writing and will be posted on BetaSAM.gov after March 12, 2021.

With no more questions being raised, the meeting was dismissed at approximately 13:30 p.m.

mailto:TiranaHealthIS@state.gov